Akhona Magqabeni snatches late equaliser for Tornado

A late equaliser from budding young Tornado talent Akhona Magqabeni saw the Eastern Cape representatives snatch a thrilling 2-2 draw against Mangaung United during their opening ABC Motsepe League promotional playoff encounter at Erika Park in Cape Town on Tuesday.

Maqgqabeni put in an all-star effort to bag both goals for his side and give them a lifeline in the hunt for promotion to National First Division [NFD]. A loss to Mangaung who are are one of the play-off favourites along with Tornado, could have proved very costly.

It was Tornado who took a 1-0 lead into the halftime break after an early penalty was converted by the 22-year-old Mdantsane-born Magqabeni, after just eight minutes.

United had to search for an equaliser and they did by stepping on the gas as the Free State representatives came out all guns blazing in the second half - scoring two goals to take the lead.

But it was Magqabeni who had the final say, scoring in the dying minutes of the game to make sure his side would come away with a point.

Tornado head coach, Tshepo Motsoeneng, who breathed a sign of relief, said he was satisfied with the one point in the tightly contested competition.

The former Free State Stars goalkeeper lauded the football maestro that has been with the Mdantsane-based third-tier league champs for two seasons.

“The young boy (Magqabeni) did wonders on the day. I’ve been saying it - that this boy is gold because he was able to score two goals, as the young boy he is.

“Everyone should look out for this boy because he really came through for the team,” said Motsoeneng.

He said playing a tough opponent like United in their first game meant they had to bring their A-game and the result was a good start to their playoff campaign that could see them playing at National First Division level.

“We were ready to face Mangaung, but they fought very hard and well.

“They were coming to us and that caused us to make a lot of mistakes on the day.  If you looked in the middle of park we were not structured, we were all over the place, but it’s fine we’ll bounce back.

“Because now we get to go back to the drawing board, plus a point is better nothing and we can always built from it,” said Motsoeneng.

Tornado will now prepare to take on Hungry Lions in their second game in the tournament on Thursday and Motsoeneng said they were still in the running for the title.

“We have to grind for the results, and win on Thursday. There’s nothing else that we’ll plan for.

“I knew when we were trailing behind against Mangaung we’d come back into the game, because they were as strong as I thought they’d be.

“It was a matter of us being better on the day and we were not better on the day, hence the result came back like that. But we can’t continue to allow things like that to happen.

 “Our next opponent might have watched us play and plan according to what they’ve seen against Mangaung, but we are not worried about that – we are focusing on ourselves.”